


Lyokostar 1: Story 3: The Crystal Labyrinth

by WindySilver



Series: Lyokostar 1 [5]
Category: Code Lyoko
Genre: F/M, in which something lost is found
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-27
Updated: 2020-06-27
Packaged: 2021-03-04 06:20:31
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 10
Words: 14,417
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24949084
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/WindySilver/pseuds/WindySilver
Summary: Time has passed. Mary has adapted to her life on Earth and the search for the anti-virus is ongoing. X.A.N.A. shows no signs of fatiguing and finally takes his general back, plunging him with Mary to a place where he had sent those who had opposed him in secret in the deepest of Lyoko's shadows. Can William and Mary get out of that labyrinth?
Relationships: Jeremie Belpois/Aelita Schaeffer, Yumi Ishiyama/Ulrich Stern
Series: Lyokostar 1 [5]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1805602
Collections: Lyokostar





	1. A Nightmare

Mary was on Lyoko, on Ice Sector. She tried to figure out what she needed to do there because she had no idea why she even was there. Then, all of a sudden, she heard something.  
"Who's there?" she asked. No one or nothing answered but Mary heard something clearly. As if something was coming towards her...

Some strange grating could be heard.  
"Bloks!" Mary exclaimed. Right after that, she saw one Blok. "Correction: _a_ Blok."

Dropping joking, she did not hesitate but destroyed that Blok. Then she heard a Tarantula behind her, turned and got frightened. William was riding the Tarantula. Mary backed away a step. Right after that, once the information about the situation fully reached her brains, the girl turned and started to run away faster than ever before.

Mary ran until something caught her and tossed her back straight from the motion. She hit ground very hard and still heard the Tarantula approaching, but pain blurred her sight so that she did not see where it came. She could only do one thing: run further away from the voice of the Tarantula. Therefore, she closed her eyes and started to run again, hoping that there would not be any more monsters and she would not run into chasms. Soon something hit her back.

Mary opened her eyes and saw the surface of the Digital Sea, yet she felt that she was still on Lyoko's surface. She scrambled up hastily, went away from the edge and turned, seeing only William, not the Tarantula. _What on earth?! Where's that Tarantula?!_ Mary though, half surprised, half frightened. She knew that it was most likely a trap. William came closer and exactly one word came to Mary's mind, _Attack!_

Mary shot William with a fireball and took to the hills with her wings right after that. She flew fast yet William could easily stay behind her, so Mary sped up, eluding her pursuer. However, soon he reached Mary after speeding up himself, which the girl noticed far too late: just when William had already caught her in black smoke. He took her to the end of the sector where the Xana Warrior threw her to the Digital Sea, laughing.  
"NOOOOOO!!" Mary screamed as she fell.

Then she noticed that she was in her bed. She still panted after understanding that she had seen just a nightmare, but slowly yet surely she started to calm down.  
"Luckily it was just a nightmare. Luckily it was just a nightmare..." Mary talked to herself quietly to calm down.

After calming down eventually, she looked at the clock and cursed heavily in her mind; it was just two at night. Mary knew that she could never sleep after seeing a nightmare, so she decided to start reading to kill time.

She went to the bookshelf and looked at her books, finally choosing one of them. That book was called _The Path of The Warrioress_.  
 _Chapter 1: The beginning of everything  
"May 4th, 1999.  
Dear diary. Today I turned 15. Now I can study to become a warrior. I'm finally old enough to start the studies! I'll soon leave home to become a real warrior. It'll be exciting, I'm sure of that. Since I've practiced the basic skills with help from my cousin ever since I was young, I should get started soon. But now I have to go. There's a lot to see and do."  
Eleonora closed and locked her diary. She put it to her bag and said aloud, "When I return, I'll be a real warrior!" While leaving, she hugged her little sister Sarah and mother as goodbyes.  
"See you around, big sister!" Sarah said. Nodding and smiling to her one last time, Eleonora left._

Mary read and read until she fell asleep. She dreamt about the story of the book. In that dream, she was Eleonora and her old friend and cousin Sophie was Sarah. Even though her memories had become dim over the course of the years, Mary also saw her own mother in the dream and recognized her right away; she was now Eleonora's mother. The events vaguely reminded Mary of her past in Wales even though the memories did not become any clearer from it.

When she woke up from the depths of her dream, she was still tired after staying awake. This led to her falling asleep during the PE lesson. There, head against the wall, she dreamt of the story of the book again and it certainly was not boring to watch.

Soon, right in the middle of a thrilling battle against X.A.N.A.'s specter, a shout reached her ears, "Wind! What are you doing?"

Mary woke up and saw that the shouter was Jim. There was no one else in the gym.  
"Where's everyone else?" Mary asked, still sleepy. Only now she realized that she had fallen asleep, standing, back and head against the wall.  
"On the next lesson! The previous lesson ended half an hour ago!" Jim shouted. Mary squinted; the shout made her head pound. "Five hours of detention! Reason: sleeping during a lesson!"

Mary was about to complain about it, but she still remembered how the other Lyoko Warriors had gotten detention back months ago. She did not want to get ten hours of detention, so she accepted her defeat and went to the locker room. She decided against going to the lesson because it would end soon. There was no use going there.

She did not have any more time for thinking when something hit her and she felt like her head would crack. Then she felt nothing, as if she no longer existed.

And there was a reason for it...


	2. Under X.A.N.A.'s Control

That was just when the bell rang and the lessons ended. William and Yumi went to Mary as the others ran to them.  
"X.A.N.A. attacks!" Jeremy huffed.  
"Okay, let's go," William said.

Mary answered to that, "I wouldn't be so sure about that."

The others looked at her, and that was when it turned out that Mary was Xanafied. They left to run to the park, getting Mary out of people's sights. Then it would be better to fight against her, although the others continued to the manhole and did not stop to fight even there. They continued to the factory through the sewers and Mary ran behind them, reaching Odd, who was going as the last one.  
"Go ahead! I'll hold her ba-," Odd started, but Mary just pushed him to the sewer water and continued on. The others could not stop to help their surfacing fellow, so they sped up. Odd would be fine and follow them.

When the others got to the bridge and went to the factory, they decided who would fight against Mary. William was the only volunteer, so keeping the girl out of the lab became his responsibility. The others went to the elevator, William stayed to wait for Mary. Soon she came, and X.A.N.A. mocked the others through Mary when he saw that William was against him.  
"They must believe that it's too dangerous to send you to Lyoko without Mary," the Xanafied Mary said and laughed.  
"And you are so cowardly that you attack others only when they don't have the time to defend themselves," William retaliated to X.A.N.A. Mary fell silent and threw a fireball at William. However, he dodged the burning attack more or less skillfully.

Something went awry in both Mary and X.A.N.A. at that very moment. Something was not right in either of them. The thoughts of them both started to be disturbed by something. When X.A.N.A. started to lose its grip on Mary, Mary could think by herself again and started to get free both due to the disturbance and her own strength. At the same time, X.A.N.A.'s marks in Mary's eyes started to blur and clear in turns. William did not know what was going on. He only knew that something was wrong.

That was when Aelita got to the tower and tried to enter Code Lyoko.  
"Aelita, Code... Jeremy, it doesn't work!" she exclaimed.  
"What?!" Jeremy cried out. "Try to find out if X.A.N.A.'s trying to prevent you from deactivating the tower with some bug!"

Aelita searched for information and soon told, "Jeremy! I found something! It looks like a part of the anti-virus! I'll send it to you right away!" Then she sent the data and tried to deactivate the tower again.  
"Aelita, Code Lyoko. Tower deactivated," she spoke calmly. "Very strange..." She did not notice a small smiley face and the initials F.H. on the screen.

X.A.N.A. lost its grip on Mary both due to the disturbance and the deactivation of the tower. The girl fell on the ground while fainting, and right after that Jeremy called and told William to come to the lab. William took Mary on his shoulders to carry her to the lab; the girl could not be left to lie there. When he had arrived, Jeremy told about the data Aelita had found and said that only a little more data would be needed so that the anti-virus would be scraped together. Mary woke up only when Jeremy said, "...Soon we can shut the supercomputer down."

Mary did not hear the beginning of the sentence and thus did not know the situation. Fatigued by Xanafication, she thought that they were going to shut down the supercomputer due to the danger she had caused. Therefore, she left, unnoticed by everyone.

Multiple minutes passed by before Odd noticed Mary's disappearance and told the others. Jeremy checked the surveillance camera and saw that Mary left the factory.  
"Mary just left the factory," he told. The group went after the girl; her sudden disappearance was not a good sign.

Mary went to the school into her room, took her diary and wrote into it, _Dear diary. I guess this is my final message, as I am going to shut down the supercomputer. I know that my heart will stop if it's shut down, but I don't have a choice. X.A.N.A. possessed me and I heard when everyone decided to shut the supercomputer down soon. I guess they fear that I'll cause even more damage if I get Xanafied again. It's goodbye now. X.A.N.A. no longer has the Keys of Lyoko, so I will destroy it and save the others, even though it'll be my last deed. The others are so important to me that I will destroy myself to save them all. Goodbye world. My story is now over._

She closed the diary but did not lock it. Why bother? She left it on her bed and went to end the battle which had gone on for far too long already. Now it had to end. It absolutely had to.

A mere minute after she had left, William, having hurried ahead of everyone else, went to her room and knocked. The boy went in even though he got no answer. There he saw the diary and was going to take it and put it to the table when it suddenly opened up as if on its own from the final entry. _How did that happen? Opening the door can't cause such a powerful gust, can it?_

How it happened did not matter at the moment. For all William cared, it could even be X.A.N.A. or something else supernatural behind it; judging from the date, there seemed to be something that was just written. It could be something important and help him to Mary's tracks, so against his scolding conscience he read the text on the page. _Just this once. This is an emergency._

He was shocked by the words his friend had written and left right away to tell the others about Mary's intents. When the information arrived, the whole group turned back towards the factory, after Mary. She had to be stopped!

However, when they arrived at the factory, Mary was already ready to shut down the supercomputer. She kept herself from shutting it by reminiscing the past for one last time. She wanted to exist for one small moment before disappearing into the void – or whatever awaited on the other side of the line between life and death. The others reached the supercomputer only when Mary was fully ready to do what she was going to do. She could not be stopped anymore.  
"NO!" everyone but Mary cried out.  
"It's over now, X.A.N.A.! Farewell!" Mary said with her voice strong and shut the supercomputer down before she would doubt herself. She went backwards and fell as her heart stopped. The supercomputer started to go into the floor.

That was when X.A.N.A. came out of it, escaping destruction.

No one moved except for X.A.N.A., who looked at Mary. Then the AI turned to look at where the supercomputer had been. To the group's surprise, the supercomputer came back up from the floor. Then X.A.N.A. looked at the youngsters who had frozen still, unable to believe what they saw. No one dared to act now that the AI was present, fully capable of causing lots of damage to them.

X.A.N.A. stood aside, opposite to Mary, so that someone could turn on the supercomputer, and nodded towards the computer. William went forward, hesitating. Yumi tried to stop him by grabbing his shoulder and said, "It's a trap! Even if you can turn on the supercomputer, X.A.N.A. will possess you!"

In a sudden surge of rage, William freed his shoulder from Yumi's grip with force, ending up a few steps away from the group, turned and shouted at them, "So what if I end up Xanafied as long as Mary gets saved?! I've been freed before! Mary sacrificed herself to save us, so I will turn the supercomputer back on so that she will live, and you can't say or do anything that would stop me!"

Then he turned his back on his fellows, strong and mind unwavering, going towards the supercomputer. He turned it on and turned, looking more defiant than he actually was. The thought of getting back under X.A.N.A.'s control horrified him, but if Mary had been ready to die for them, he would be ready to risk his own, nowadays far less taken for granted freedom for her.

In the darkness, Mary heard X.A.N.A.'s voice, "Awaken, Mary! William was ready to fall under my control as long as you could live. He walked past me to turn on the supercomputer even though I could have done anything to stop him and anyone who would have dared to do so. This battle won't be over with a mere turn of a switch! Therefore awaken, Mary, and fight like the warrior I trained you to be!"

Mary opened her eyes and as the first thing she saw X.A.N.A.'s physical form. The AI nodded to her and immediately returned to the supercomputer without even trying to do anything to William, who jumped out of his way. X.A.N.A. did not want to turn this into a competition of turning the switch, a competition which would definitely start if he took William from Mary right away.

Mary stared at the supercomputer and William next to it. What had happened and did X.A.N.A. tell the truth?

Alone in the dark, X.A.N.A. hummed to himself, satisfied with his accomplishment, and noted, "Although, it probably would have been good for yourself if you had stayed here, dragon girl... The worst is merely ahead and your escape route just closed..."

X.A.N.A. laughed with dedication. "This will be entertaining... _Very_ entertaining..."


	3. Enraged

Mary stood up, weak, and looked at the others inquiringly. The silence seemed endless, so finally she cut it by asking, "What happened? X.A.N.A. talked something about..." However, she cut the sentence off when she realized what she had been about to say. Hearing X.A.N.A.'s voice was not taken for granted to the others, as opposed to her. Just thinking of what she had already blurted and what she had been about to blurt were starting to get on her nerves. Everyone but William started to stare at Mary.  
"There's no need to stare!" Mary scoffed.  
"Mary, behind you!" William cried out. Mary turned and back away so far that she stumbled on her feet and fell. The others had not been staring her but what had been behind her.  
"Go back to Lyoko, X.A.N.A.! We don't want you here!" Mary said and stood up. She felt giddy but she wanted to stay strong. X.A.N.A. was surprised; Mary had not spoken like this since Lyoko's worst era. The materialized AI returned to Lyoko, this time all the way back to its destination. Now everyone but William looked directly at Mary, amazed. The girl sensed their gazes and said, "It's been time since I've talked like that to anyone. Not part of my habits."

Mary smiled at the memory of the previous time. She had lost her temper at XanaWilliam quite bad when he had – once again – come to bother her. She still remembered XanaWilliam's face after that. It had been fun back then; when such a stupefied expression came to the face of the human who might be the death of her. She had had to run away, keep herself from laughing and hide her grin at the same time, but she had lived to laugh at it at a safer location. It had not been an easy thing, but it had been fun.  
"You're quite some thug," Odd said quietly.  
"I don't know about that. I've been quite a coward sometimes," Mary told calmly. All the numerous escapes when she could have contacted the Lyoko Warriors and fight by their side... She knew that she could have done better. All of that had, in a certain way, been wasted when she had worked only for herself and her own life.

They processed their misunderstanding and forgot what had happened earlier. After that, they were free to exit the factory and leave the incident behind.

Yet so that the battle would not have been too easy, everything started to go to a worse direction. Something persecuted Mary in her dreams, and she did not know what it was. However, she did not want to mention it to the others, even though she started to be in a bad state since she slept less and less and started to doze off at any given time and place: on lessons, in the canteen, on corridors, even on Lyoko. Especially William started to be worried about her, and one time when she had once again fallen asleep on lessons, he brought the issue up among others. Mary was not part of the conversation, as the teacher was still yelling at her for falling asleep on her lesson. After that episode, she went to them, shocked and silent. Unfortunately, before the girl managed to reach her friends, Milly and Tamiya came to ask her for an interview about her dormitions. Mary blew a fuse.  
"Get lost! It's none of your business! Take care of only your own business!!" she yelled as loudly as she could at them and left, cursing. She left the echoing silence behind herself.

While walking, Mary cursed and cursed and went to the factory instead of going to talk with other Lyoko Warriors, which the group was partly relieved about; the girl most likely was not good company during such a fit of rage. She launched a delayed virtualization to Sector Five, went to the scanner room and into a scanner there. After virtualizing, she did everything as fast as she could.

First, she went to the Celestial Dome; X.A.N.A. could be behind her nightmares. Mary cursed when the monsters interrupted her, and she destroyed them faster than she could say, "Stupid monsters." Of course, the litany of foul words did slow saying that, which did influence the speed.

She kept searching even though she did not know what she was looking for. Then she found what she had needed: the final part of the anti-virus. She sent it to the supercomputer right away and devirtualized herself.

She called the others and told them to come to the factory right away. When they had arrived, Mary told the news. While everyone else wondered, Jeremy took control and started to put the anti-virus together. Only five minutes passed before Jeremy announced that the anti-virus was ready, so Mary did not have much time to explain how she had managed to find the final part. She already had to head back to the scanners fast.

When Mary stood out of the scanner after getting the anti-virus, she did not feel anything special. Everything was as it had been, yet she still knew she had finally become free of X.A.N.A. and the supercomputer, and that she rejoiced.

With joy, Mary suggested a small party to celebrate the occasion, but the others dismissed the suggestion, laughing. Where could they even party?

Had it been about something less secret, they could have partied at school, but it did not do. Now they had to go to their lessons, but this time they returned to Kadic, happy about their success.

They were one step closer to victory.

Now they just had to figure out how to destroy X.A.N.A. who was free of the supercomputer as well.


	4. Misfortune

The days passed by fast, and Mary noticed that there was only a week to the summer holiday.  
"It's just a week till the summer holiday! Time has passed so fast when it hasn't been necessary to worry so much about the supercomputer!" she noted at breakfast.  
"Yes, but we have to destroy X.A.N.A. It has proved that it still has the Keys to Lyoko and can escape the supercomputer," Jeremy remarked. "I just can't get how it has been able to keep the Keys despite of being destroyed."

That was when Mary remembered what X.A.N.A. had said to her long ago, "Even though I'd be destroyed but I'd have the Keys to Lyoko, upon returning I'd still have them."  
"X.A.N.A. told me a long time ago that if it gets the Keys to Lyoko and even gets destroyed, it'd still have those Keys when returning. That's why X.A.N.A. got out of the supercomputer back when... well, you know," Mary told.

After a while, Sissi came and asked the group, "What are you losers going to do on the holiday? I'm going to my grandparents' place in Scotland. I believe you'll stay here, since you don't know about your relatives, right, Wales's Dragon?"

Mary turned her gaze to Sissi, eyes flaring out of sheer rage. Sissi took it was a sign of that she had succeeded to hit a nerve and left, satisfied with herself.  
"You're an even more authentic blond now that you heeded my advice and dyed your hair blond!" Odd shouted after her.  
"If she still calls me _that_ , then you bet I will..." Mary growled with a low voice.  
"Hey, watch out with that voice of yours! You sound just like a Xanafied person!" Odd joked and Mary turned her eyes to her. No one said anything as everyone waited for what would happen next in the charged silence. Then they all started to laugh as if by a common command. Mary slumped onto the table out of laughter.  
"That... was the best... X.A.N.A.... joke... ever since my duplication... joke," Mary said as she tried to stop laughing. Jeremy's laptop started to beep when the Superscanner alarmed.  
"Let me guess: X.A.N.A. attacks," Ulrich said. Jeremy nodded, and they left fast without saying anything else. Eating was left unfinished.  
"The tower is in the Forest!" Jeremy said when Yumi, Ulrich and Odd went to the scanners. Jeremy virtualized them and then it was Mary, William and Aelita's turn. They got to the Forest safely and went to the tower.  
"Oh metal ball!" Mary exclaimed when they stopped. There was an actual army of monsters at the tower.  
"We need a true miracle to get Aelita to the tower!" William said.  
"We have to attack. Come rain or shine!" Ulrich said, biting his lip. They went towards the monsters, preparing themselves for a quick attack.

Then the ground shook, and the Lyoko Warriors stopped to look around themselves.  
"What was that? An earthquake?" William asked.  
"It can only be one thing," Mary said with a grave voice.  
"The Kolossus?" Yumi suggested.  
"The Kolossus?" William repeated.

Then the ground shook again, and they did see the Kolossus. William saw from the others' faces that no one believed their eyes. Neither did he as he saw that giant for the first time in his life with his own eyes.  
"It's bigger than I remembered!" Ulrich cried out.  
"It IS bigger than before!" Mary exclaimed.  
"What do we do now?" Odd asked.

Mary looked at the other monsters: twenty monsters for each monster species except the Scyphozoa, the Kolossus and the Creeper.  
"We have to group. Some of us try to destroy the Kolossus, the rest destroy the other monsters," Mary said.  
"All right, who will go to attack the Kolossus?" Aelita asked.  
"We can't send many or we won't have enough people to destroy the other monsters!" Yumi remarked.  
"True. I'll try alone first. With good luck, I'll get high enough to destroy it but if I fail, Ulrich can try; he did destroy the Kolossus once," Mary answered and got up into the air with her wings.  
"Be careful, Mary!" Jeremy said.

Mary did not listen. A few Mantas looked at her and she looked at them, whereupon they attacked her. Mary dealt with them quickly and flew towards the Kolossus again.

She started to cannon the Kolossus with fireballs and when they did not seem to be effective, she turned into a dragon and started to spew fire with quite a blaze. She managed to scorch the Kolossus's head and started to scorch its sword hand then. Having become desperate while spewing fire, Mary scorched the whole Kolossus so well that upon falling it turned into virtual ash.  
"You're nothing, just an insignificant bunch of digital dust", Mary said after turning into a human and laughed a bit. She felt like she was the bad guy while quoting a certain X.A.N.A.'s general she knew all too well. She turned and tossed a fireball at a Hornet who tried to hit her with a poor aim.

After that, Mary left to the center of the battle, cannoning the monsters from above. She had a vantage over the Crabs from the air as well as to Mantas, Hornets and Tarantulas. These monsters she did cannon until she had to go lower to hit the Kankrelats and Megatanks. Then she had to land to destroy the Bloks.

There she saw that in addition to her only William had escaped devirtualization and he was also fighting against the Bloks; therefore, Aelita had been devirtualized and the tower could not be deactivated, but at least they could clear the area and wait for the girl's return.

One could not argue that William had not improved a lot as a Lyoko Warrior during these weeks. Without staying to ponder her friend's progression, Mary decided to make the battle a bit more amusing and started to jump on the Bloks. As a result, a total of five Bloks walked into the Digital Sea in confusion. Then Mary heard Jeremy shouting to her, "Mary! The Scyphozoa caught William!"

Mary abandoned the Bloks immediately and ran towards William and the Scyphozoa, but she arrived too late: the Scyphozoa already let go of William.  
"Oh no," Mary breathed. She ran closer and asked, "Are you okay, William?"

William turned, and Mary saw what she had expected with dread: William was Xanafied once again.

One of the Bloks left undestroyed shot Mary with an ice beam and the Lyoko Warrior girl got stuck to the ground from her feet. She threw a fireball behind her, hitting her target, but William took off with Super Smoke towards the end of the sector. Mary knew what he was going to do and started to destroy the ice with everything she had in use: her hands and fireballs. When they proved insufficient, she turned her hands into dragon's paws and pummeled the ice as much as she just could. The ice broke just when Jeremy cried out, "William's destroying the Heart of Lyoko! The shield layers are already gone! I'll bring you back, Mary!"

Right after that, Lyoko disappeared from around the girl and Mary fell towards the surface of the Digital Sea.  
"NOOOO!!! I WILL AVENGE THIS, X.A.N.A.AAAA!" Mary screamed and disappeared into the Digital Sea before the materialization command managed to do its job. Only a light-blue pillar that lasted for merely seconds was a sign of her having been there, but even that disappeared fast.


	5. The Labyrinth

After being tossed in the darkness, Mary fell to a place she had never seen before. Groaning in the pain caused by the fall, she stood up but had to lean to a wall as the dizziness rose with her. Although, she could not take a single step; she passed out, unable to stay conscious. She lay on the ground for hours until her resuscitating mind was intruded by a familiar voice, "Luckily, there aren't any monsters or Xanafied here. Anything could've happened to her if some enemy would've found her."

There was something familiar in the voice. Mary knew she had heard it before even though she could not connect it to anyone. Where am I? How did I end up here?  
"I guess she knows what happened after the Scyphozoa caught me. She must've fallen to the Digital Sea, just like I did, upon failing to stop my plans to destroy the Heart of Lyoko."

Those words said with William's voice returned the memories of the events to Mary's mind, and they were clear: a monster army in front of the Forest's active tower.

The Kolossus, the Bloks, the Scyphozoa, William under X.A.N.A.'s possession again.

Legs frozen to the ground by a Blok and William speeding away from the scene in Super Smoke.

Jeremy's shout, "William's destroying the Heart of Lyoko! The shield layers are already gone! I'll bring you back, Mary!"

Lyoko disappearing and the fall towards the surface of the Digital Sea.

And some place with walls light blue like in Sector Five, but she wasn't there, it was destroyed...

Now completely conscious of what had happened, Mary opened her eyes, seeing William and a girl she did not recognize. William reacted to her awakening right away and asked, "Are you ok, Mary?"  
"Yeah, I guess so," Mary answered.  
"It seems X.A.N.A. has realized how to get rid of burrs that are nuisances to it," the unknown girl said, "even though it hasn't realized it could destroy them as well. I suppose 'out of sight, out of mind' is enough for it."  
"Well, I really am not a burr to X.A.N.A., Sophie," William said in a bitterish way. Sophie, who did not know William's history as a Lyoko and Xana Warrior looked at the boy in confusion. Mary rose and put her hand on William's shoulder, hoping that she could support her friend somehow. They exchanged glances and Mary nodded compassionately. Then she looked at the girl called Sophie.  
"Who are you?" she asked.  
"I'm Sophie, the exclusive ruler of this place," Sophie answered and looked around herself. "A very cool thing, right? Here in the middle of nowhere."  
"How long have you been here?" Mary asked. She knew that she had not seen this girl on Lyoko, so how had she ended up here?  
"For a long time," answered Sophie. "I've been here in the Crystal Labyrinth for a very long time."

They left the scene upon Sophie's suggestion to go to the center of the labyrinth. The girl told about how she had ended up to the desolate and boring labyrinth – X.A.N.A. had kidnapped her as a child and after revolting she had ended up to the Crystal Labyrinth when X.A.N.A. had plunged her to the Digital Sea – while Mary told about her life on Lyoko with dangers and all. William, on the other hand, stayed silent and listened; he did not want to tell about what becoming a Lyoko Warrior and the following ending up becoming a Xana Warrior had added to his life experiences.

There was nothing at the center, so they decided to stay there and try something to get a connection to Lyoko's supercomputer. Mary meditated, as did Sophie and William, instructed by her. However, finally even Mary gave up as well and noted that there was no kind of connection to the outside world. They did not know about the time, but as the fatigue pressed, she started to sleep quite soon after giving up. Sophie and William were already fast asleep by then.

When Mary opened her eyes, she was alone.  
"William? Sophie?" she called for her fellows. "Where are you?"

Something flashed in her sphere of vision. Mary turned to look at the direction where the flash had gone to, but there was no one. Nevertheless, she heard footsteps and followed them, calling for her friend again, "William? Are you there? Hello?"

The footsteps stayed ahead of her even though Mary started to run towards them; they hastened their pace as she ran. Even though she memorized each turn, she still feared that she would not find her way back to the center anymore. In addition to that, she was afraid of being alone without knowing where William and Sophie were. She was especially worried about William; she did not want to lose him at any cost ever again.

The steps ended to the transparentish wall at the edge of the labyrinth. There Mary caught the person who had gone ahead of her. Although, judging from the short brown hair they were not William nor Sophie.  
"Hey!" Mary shouted.

She did not have the time to do anything else as the avatar stepped through the wall and disappeared.

Mary opened her eyes and found herself staring at the sky of the Crystal Labyrinth. Had someone knocked her out?

After sitting up, Mary saw William and Sophie. They were both asleep and they were all in the center of the labyrinth. Had it all been just a dream?

Dream or not, Mary knew that they had better check this while she still remembered the way. She woke Sophie and William up and started to lead them through path she had traveled while following the unknown human avatar. There indeed was the same transparentish wall at the end of the route and the dark blue behind it. It did not seem to differ from the rest of the peripheral wall of the labyrinth, but Mary was completely sure that it was the way out. She pressed her hand against it, noticing that there was no wall at that spot, as her hand went through it.  
"I can't understand how I haven't noticed that before," Sophie said, scrabbling her hair. "I'm sure that I've checked this whole place meter per meter throughout literally at least a hundred times!"  
"Perhaps it appears only at a certain time of the day," Mary theorized. "Let's go."

As she stepped out of the Crystal Labyrinth with her fellows, some rejected part of her mind said by force, _Thank you, Jackson._

Then it fell silent, missing the attention it wanted, just as X.A.N.A. wanted it to be.


	6. On Lyoko Again

They saw Lyoko once again. They were floating over nothing, all three of them. Or perhaps there was some transparent part of the Crystal Labyrinth under their feet. They did not see back inside anymore and none of them dared to take the step back to see if they could get back to the labyrinth from Lyoko's hand.  
"Here's what's left of Lyoko. Just the sky and the surface of the Digital Sea... Sector Five used to be here," Mary said. The clear longing could be heard from her voice even though she was terrified of being there, seemingly over nothing. She did not want to fall again.

How could they get out of there?  
"You said it, Mary," William said and sighed. He knew that this was his fault; once again, it was his sword that had made all of this disappear.

Confused by what she saw, Sophie looked at the sky and then the surface of the Digital Sea. It looked so familiar...

Suddenly she remembered. She had ended up to the Crystal Labyrinth through here when X.A.N.A. had made the world disappear from under her feet. While falling to the Digital Sea, she had seen two people who had looked very similar to Mary and William.  
"I've seen you both here, in this place," Sophie said aloud. Mary and William looked at her, puzzled.  
"When?" Mary asked.  
"Sometime when Lyoko was destroyed. I saw Mary peering around herself and I wondered how she did not notice you, William. I saw you floating on the surface of the Digital Sea," Sophie answered. William looked away; he realized immediately that Sophie referred to the time when he had become a Xana Warrior for the first time.

Mary frowned, confused. She would have seen Sophie, had she been there. Furthermore, the girl had said that she had been in the Crystal Labyrinth for very long, so that did not match either.  
"It hasn't been so long since that that it'd match with the fact that you've been in the Crystal Labyrinth for long," she stated. Now it was Sophie's turn to frown.  
"I'm absolutely sure that I was here," she said.

Mary scratched her head. Either Sophie's sense of time had failed in the Crystal Labyrinth worse than her own had on Lyoko or there was some inconsistency in her memory.

Had X.A.N.A. fed a picture of them there into Sophie's memory?

They could not know.

Mary shrugged. "This is strange."  
"Well, anyway, that's why I thought back in the Crystal Labyrinth that you both looked familiar," Sophie told. William turned his back on the girls to avoid joining the conversation. He did not want to even think about that day.

Although, the conversation did not even continue as something started to shine brightly somewhere further away in front of them and blinded them. Mary tried to see what it was, but she did not see anything. Then the light went out and they all saw a white ball floating on the air.  
"Could it really be...?" Sophie and Mary asked quietly in unison.

A flock of Mantas was materialized nearby, and they started to shoot at the ball. Mary and Sophie looked at each other, nodded and started an attack, Mary flying with her wings and Sophie shooting Storm Spheres from her standing point. William followed Mary even though he did not fully know what was going on.

The Mantas were destroyed fast, thanks to the three warriors. Mary and William returned to Sophie and the ball followed them there. When the two Lyoko Warriors who had fought in the air got invisible ground under their feet, the trio turned towards the ball. Mary and Sophie smiled while William looked at them inquiringly.  
"Please explain me what's going on since you seem to know by yourselves," he said.  
"It's nice to meet you as yourself, William," the ball said. William looked at it, aghast. Not only that it spoke, it also knew his name!  
"William, this is Franz Hopper," Mary told. William's eyebrows shot up.  
"I thought that you were destroyed on the same day as X.A.N.A.," he noted. "So Aelita and everyone else have said."  
"It sure looked like that," Mary remarked. "I saw what happened on that day through meditation."  
"I don't know how I came back to being, but here I am," Franz stated. Had he had a human body, he would have shrugged.  
"Strange," Mary said. The case was unheard of and admittedly it did provoke bitterness somewhere deep where the fear of death raised by Xanastein still dwelled. It felt unfair that after the prolonged fear and threat of being destroyed, the one who was destroyed could return to existence someday.

Just like X.A.N.A. had done...  
"Well, Lyoko has to be recreated. Otherwise we can't do anything, can we?" William said. "Unless we are able to be devirtualized already."  
"Maybe we are, if the scanners and the supercomputer are online," Mary noted. "Although, I'd rather not take that risk before we get a confirmation on that."  
"So we have to get Lyoko back before we can do anything else," Sophie stated. Franz would have nodded if he had had a head with which to nod.  
"Yup. Although, for all I care we could look for a way to another sector. I think it wouldn't be nice to appear somewhere in Sector Five where we might not find a way out. At worst, no one would find us and then we'd all get destroyed because of traps one by one, all the lot," Mary said.  
"Mary, come on. That's overly grim," William sighed, slightly distressed by those words. The tingling laughed at his reaction somewhere at the edge of the back of his head. However, it fell silent when he wished it to be quiet.  
"Yeah. Someone probably finds us when Lyoko has been recreated," Sophie said.  
"I wouldn't be so sure about that," someone said with a malevolent voice. The tingling in William's head jumped, as if surprised.

First, the all four of them froze, even though you could not tell that from the ball-shaped Hopper. Then they turned to look around to see the talker, but there was no one to be seen.

Despite of that, each one of them was certain that they were not alone.

To avoid a possible first hit, Sophie hid behind Mary, who had instinctively taken up dragon's arms. She did not want to get destroyed now that she had finally gotten out of the Crystal Labyrinth. However, she explained her action to herself with taking a good spot for aiming instead of horror.

Franz did nothing; he could not fight. If someone attacked, his life would depend on the skills of the three Lyoko Warriors.

William believed he recognized the voice. It was subconsciously familiar to him even though he did not remember ever hearing it. He took his sword up and prepared to fight to defend his fellows.

Something in him made him ask aloud, "It... it was X.A.N.A., wasn't it?"


	7. In Distress

Something smoke-like came towards them from the horizon. Mary was the first to realize what it was.  
"Let's get away from here!" she exclaimed. Trusting in her judgement, they fled, Sophie held up by William's black smoke.  
"That smoke is fast! What is it?!" Sophie shouted.  
"You don't want to know!" Mary roared.  
"There's no need to yell!" Sophie shouted.  
"Yes, there is!" Mary shouted back.

They reached the end and could no longer go forward.  
"Oh no! The end came!" Sophie said as the smoke approached. Mary gathered her bravery and moved away from the edge a little bit.  
"What is it?" William asked.  
"A polymorphic specter. And guess who it's playing?" Mary grunted as an answer.

William looked at the smoke. "Oh no..."

When the smoke was just a couple of meters away from Mary, it disappeared and took its human form.  
"Meh," Mary scoffed calmly. The specter had taken William's form and it stared at Mary.  
"One could think that you'd be afraid!" it said, boasting, and swung his big sword slightly.  
"You mean that I'd be afraid of you, a puny specter? HAH! I'd be more afraid if you'd taken the form of Alexander the Great!" Mary mocked. The specter put the ugliest grimace he could make on his face, whereupon Mary could not help feeling slight fear. She gathered her waning courage and created a fireball, throwing it to the specter before it would attack them or her guts would fail. The specter got hit, but one fireball was not enough to destroy it. The specter fell back further away when Mary started to throw more fireballs as a burst the end of which would not be seen after it had started.

Finally, the last fireball hit and the specter disappeared into the air as smoke. Immediately after it had fully disappeared, a bright light engulfed everything from their sight. When it disappeared, Mary exclaimed, "Unbelievable! Sector Five has come back!"

They descended from the edge wall to the Celestial Dome and saw a message for them on the interface.  
"'I will give Lyoko back to you, but Hopper stays here. You will not take him anywhere. The rest of you must leave. I will send you back to Earth if you don't devirtualize yourselves. Don't come back. X.A.N.A.'," Sophie read.  
"We can't leave Franz here!" William exclaimed.  
"Do we have a choice?" Mary asked. "X.A.N.A. will devirtualize us if we don't leave."

She barely managed to finish the sentence when she, Sophie and William already started to be materialized.  
"Find a tower somewhere and go to it," Sophie told Franz. She could not say anything else before they noticed that they were in the scanner room.  
"How dark!" Sophie remarked.  
"I guess it's night. I wonder how long we were away," Mary pondered.  
"I hope that just some hours," William noted. "I don't want another episode because of our disappearance." He went towards the elevator. "Let's go see how Franz is doing."

Mary and Sophie followed him to the elevator and the lab. Mary sat down at the supercomputer and watched as Franz moved just in good time to Sector Five's tower.  
"He's fast," Sophie remarked, surprised.  
"Yup. Now that he's safe, we can concentrate on what we'll do by ourselves. According to the supercomputer, Lyoko disappeared on the day before yesterday," Mary told. "If we suddenly appear, they will regard us as Xanafied for sure. It's best to get them here first so that we can explain everything at peace."  
"What about me? What will I do?" Sophie asked. "I have no place to go to. To my family, I've been missing for years. They probably wouldn't even recognize me if I reached them."

Mary felt a sting in her heart. She was in the exactly same situation. She had not even tried to reach her family after she had found out that her mother had died some time after her disappearance.  
"And I can't walk around in these clothes! They are in a totally terrible condition after aging in Lyoko!" Sophie continued.  
"If we could get you as a student at Kadic, everything would work out for sure," William noted. "That's what we did for Mary."  
"We need Jeremy to machinate the paperwork for that," Mary remarked. "When it comes to clothes, I can lend some of mine for starters."  
"That's good," Sophie sighed. "I don't want many to see me in these clothes."  
"Should we wait until the morning so that we can get the things dealt with?" William asked.

Mary looked at the screen and Franz Hopper's icon. "No. They have to hear about this right away. I'll ask Aelita to stop by my room to get a hoodie and a shirt for Sophie. You call Jeremy and tell that we have returned and so have Lyoko and Franz Hopper." She took her phone and started to type Aelita's number.  
"Alright," William said and took up his own phone. He called Jeremy, who answered in astonishment, and explained the situation to him. In the meantime, Mary gave a slightly longer explanation to Aelita. When both users of the supercomputer promised to come, Mary called Yumi, while William called Odd. After that, they could only wait for the rest of the group to come.

When the elevator doors opened, the arrived Lyoko Warriors stood into the lab, prepared for a trap.  
"Hi there," Mary greeted and got off the chair. "Thank you coming at this time of the night."  
"Has Dad really returned?" Aelita asked and walked towards the supercomputer with Mary's clothes in her hands.  
"Yes," Mary answered, took the clothes and gave them to Sophie, who put them on right away, satisfied. Aelita went to the supercomputer and looked at the screen, unable to believe her eyes. Jeremy went to her side while Odd paid more attention to Sophie.  
"What even happened? How did you suddenly get back to Lyoko's supercomputer?" Yumi asked. "You both fell to the Digital Sea when Lyoko was destroyed."  
"We ended up on one of the virtual worlds created by X.A.N.A., the Crystal Labyrinth. We got to Lyoko through there when we found the way out," Mary explained. "I don't know how it all happened."  
"And an even bigger mystery is why Franz suddenly appeared on Lyoko a while after we had gotten out of the labyrinth," William noted. "He just appeared when some bright light blinded us."  
"How did Lyoko even reappear?" Jeremy asked. Aelita tried to take the microphone to her hand, but her hands trembled too much. She could not believe that her father was still alive and now on Lyoko again.  
"X.A.N.A. restored it. It wants to keep Franz on Lyoko and us away," Mary answered.  
"And who are you, beauty, by the way?" Odd asked Sophie.  
"Sophie," Sophie answered, flustered by the attention she had gotten. "And you are?"  
"Odd Della Robbia, at your service," Odd answered and bowed.  
"Odd, please don't flirt at this time of the night," Ulrich sighed and yawned.

Aelita managed to put the earphone on her ear and asked, "Dad? Are you there?"  
"I am, Aelita," Franz answered. Aelita gasped; she still could not believe it.  
"How did you return? I thought... I thought that you..." Aelita could not finish the sentence.  
"I don't know, dear. I only know that I have returned," Franz answered. Tears fell out of Aelita's eyes; this seemed too good to be true.  
"We have to materialize Franz before X.A.N.A. attacks him," Jeremy said, sat at the supercomputer and started to type commands. "I'll see what I can do now."  
"Where can Franz even go if you manage to materialize him? He has been away for so long," Yumi asked.  
"We'll figure something out," Jeremy said.

Sophie was quiet and waited for the group to sort out Franz's situation. She could wait. After all, she had waited for years.

And someone actually waited for Franz here on Earth – unlike her.  
"Jeremy, Sophie has no place to go to either," Mary said. "What can we do? Getting her to Kadic is probably the most logical choice since she's X.A.N.A.'s enemy."  
"I can take care of that, but now we have to deal with one thing at a time. Mary, you can start with sorting out what information we have as a base so that I can create some sort of papers for Sophie," Jeremy answered.  
"Right," Mary said and looked at Sophie. "Do you remember anything of who you were before ending up on Lyoko?"  
"Of course I do," Sophie answered. "Although I guess no one has anything on which it all can be written down."

The Lyoko Warriors looked at each other. None of them had a pen or paper with them, and the only computer in the lab was used by Jeremy.  
"We'll have time to do it in the morning," Sophie noted and shrugged.  
"I can't materialize Franz yet," Jeremy announces. "X.A.N.A.'s blocking it. However, he should be safe in Sector Five's tower, since there are no Megatanks that can destroy it on the sector. Sophie, give me the needed info, so I can start to figure out what I need to create and modify so that we can get you to Kadic right away."  
"Alright," Sophie replied. She went next to the computer genius and started to tell the information as Jeremy requested them. Einstein promised to get things right so that Sophie would get to Kadic soon; the money for the studies would be gotten through some support organization this time as well for sure. However, until then she would have to stay the night somewhere else.  
"I can ask my parents if Sophie could stay the nights at my place," Yumi noted. "We just need to wait at least until the morning so that I can even ask."  
"That's fine by me," Sophie said. "I can stay the nights at the factory or on Lyoko as long as it's needed."  
"I believe that you won't need to do that for more than this night," Yumi reassured. "I'll talk with my parents as soon as I can."

A week later Mary was waiting for Yumi and Sophie. She had come to meet the duo to lead her new comrade to her destination once she would get to Kadic. Jeremy had managed to arrange the matters surprisingly fast, and Sophie would already get to Kadic to get used to the life in a boarding school. To her chagrin, Mary would have to share her room with Sophie and lose the only definitely peaceful place at Kadic.

Nevertheless, she believed that in the end it would be worthwhile; the sharing of family information, stemmed from the same homeland, had led them to connecting each other to the childhood friends they had had before X.A.N.A. had kidnapped them. In the same room, they could easily share their experiences and memories and also piece their knowledge of the course of events together.

The world suddenly felt very small when Mary realized that after the years, she had now met two of her friends from a decade ago on Lyoko: William and Sophie.

Sophie had disappeared soon after Mary, and according to William the rest of their friend group had disappeared soon after her. He was the only one of them who had avoided kidnapping because his parents had reacted to Mary's kidnapping immediately by taking their son away from the vicinity until there were no sightings of the kidnapper anymore.

When the next X.A.N.A. attack was launched, Mary looked at the supercomputer at the lab. Were the rest of her childhood friends somewhere out there in the virtual world just like she and Sophie had been?

Only time could tell...


	8. A Discovery

Sophie began the school year at Kadic at Aelita and the others' class without problems. However, the first school week did not even get to its end when strange things already happened: one night, Mary woke up to her computer's peculiar signal. Sophie, on the other hand, just turned to her side. She had not yet become conditioned to having to get up when the signal played, even though this time the signal was not that of Superscanner. Despite of that, Mary reacted to it, went to her computer, puzzled, and saw the view of the Digital Sea.  
"What on Earth?" she muttered. Her computer seemed to have caught a distress signal that came from the depths of the Digital Sea. "Now this is strange..."

The computer could not show the view more precisely; the supercomputer would be needed for that. Mary wrote the coordinates down, called Jeremy and left to the factory ahead of the computer genius. Sophie stayed behind to sleep.

The view at the lab told more than Mary had been able to even expect: the Skidbladnir's wreck still existed and there were two people inside it. She could not get a connection to the submarine, but those two icons made her heart pound. Could they be her friends Eleonora and Charlie who disappeared after Sophie?

Could they really be them, after all these years?

Jeremy arrived at the lab.  
"I found the origin of the distress signal. It comes from the Skid's wreck," Mary told.  
"The Skid's wreck?" Jeremy asked. Mary nodded. "It can't be possible. The Skid was destroyed when it fell to the Digital Sea!"  
"Then explain what's that gadget, in which there are two people inside, sending the distress signal my computer captured," Mary blurted and pointed at the Digital Sea's window. Jeremy looked at the window, unable to believe his eyes.  
"But it can't be possible..." he said half to himself He tried to get a connection to those in the submarine, but the communications link was broken and no audio moved to one way or another.  
"Whoever are there, they need to be gotten out of there. Can you transfer them somehow?" Mary asked.  
"No. I don't think it would even work out in the Digital Sea even if I had a proper connection and the Skid was in shape," Jeremy answered.  
"Then I'll go and investigate the situation," Mary said.  
"It might be a trap. You can't go alone," Jeremy said. "Besides, how would you even get to move in the Digital Sea?"  
"The old ability which X.A.N.A. gave me. I can use it to give myself an immunity to the Digital Sea and swim," Mary answered.  
"It might still be a trap," Jeremy stated.  
"That's exactly why I can't take anyone with me," Mary said. "I can't risk anyone else."  
"I think we should call the others here and decide together instead of soloing," Jeremy said.

Mary looked at the window. If those were Eleonora and Charlie, if there was even a little bit of hope that those two icons would be them, Sophie and William did have the right to know.  
"Can you get any info out of them?" she asked and nodded at the window.  
"I can try," Jeremy stated and typed a few commands to focus the supercomputer's attention to the people inside the wreck. It gave two pictures. "There, I got their digital cards out."

Everything was forgotten, including breathing, when Mary looked at the pictures given by the supercomputer. A girl and a boy, longish blue hair and short blonde hair.

Memories from years ago billowed behind the eyes as tears.  
"Call William and Sophie and tell them to come here," Mary barely managed to whisper aloud. Only then she remembered to breathe. Jeremy nodded and started to call the oldest friends of his fellow, unknowing of what he had found. Judging from Mary's reaction, the trio knew these two.  
"It might still be a trap," Jeremy reminded Mary after calling Aelita as well. Odd, Ulrich and Yumi would get to sleep at least for now, but he wanted the Skidbladnir's another creator there to see this.  
"I know. But it might also be that help is actually needed there," Mary said. "I'm not going to leave this case uninvestigated."

When the three Lyoko Warriors who were called there arrived, Jeremy explained the situation. Mary could no longer speak, so she pointed at the digital cards. William and Sophie looked at them and they both recognized the human avatars shown by the supercomputer.  
"It might very well be a trap," Mary noted. "That's why I want to go investigate alone so that we won't lose too many people to a trap."  
"You can't go alone, Mary. I'll go with you," William said.  
"No," Mary said immediately. "Out of us three, you're the one who is going there the least. Out of us five childhood friends, you're the only one who didn't disappear for years because of X.A.N.A. I'm not going to let that happen now, either."  
"I've been lost to my family for multiple months when I've been under X.A.N.A.'s possession," William reminded.  
"Only months. If it's a trap and X.A.N.A. manages to negate the immunity to the Digital Sea, we most likely won't be gotten back ever again," Mary stated. "You being gone for months is quite enough for your parents." She turned to look at Sophie. "I'm not going to risk you, either, Sophie, now that you've finally gotten back to Earth. That's why I'll go alone."  
"I understand," Sophie said, nodding. She would not have even wanted to go with Mary on such a dangerous trip; she had been trapped in a virtual world for far too long to risk her new life on Earth.

William opened his mouth to argue against Mary again, but Aelita noticed his intention and noted, "William, Mary is right. Let her go."

William turned to look at his pink-haired comrade, taken aback by surprise.  
"Thank you, Aelita," Mary thanked. "Jeremy, send me to Lyoko. I'll go investigate the matter right away."  
"What if something happens? How do we explain your disappearance?" William asked, concerned. He did not want to let his friend go alone – even less he wanted to stand at the lab and do nothing if something happened to her.  
"Report me as missing. Tell that when Sophie woke up in the morning, I was no longer in my room," Mary answered. "It's all even true."  
"Go to the scanners, Mary. I'll launch the virtualization process," Jeremy said.  
"On my way," Mary said. She nodded to her friends and said, "See you soon."  
"Come back too!" William said. He left some words unsaid: _I don't want to lose you anymore._

The tingling seemed confident somewhere so deep inside his head that he did not even notice it.  
"See you," Sophie said. She did fear for Mary, too, but she wanted to trust that she knew what she was doing.

Mary climbed the ladders down to the scanners and then stepped into the nearest scanner.  
"Go ahead, Jeremy," she called up.

The doors of the scanner closed, Jeremy spouted his familiar commands and Mary found herself from the perimeter of the Ice Sector. She walked to the edge of the plane and looked down on the Digital Sea, taking a deep breath. She concentrated on her old ability and called the immunity to the Digital Sea with it, just like she had sometimes done when the network had felt like the only refuge – even though it had never been that.

XanaWilliam had always found her even from there...

When the immunity was ready, Mary said, "Here I come, Skid."

Then she dove.


	9. The Wreck

Jeremy's voice did not reach the Digital Sea nor Mary's voice reach the lab. The four tired Lyoko Warriors waited at the factory, worried about their comrade who approached Skidbladnir's wreck at a moderately fast pace. In the meantime, Mary tried to keep her course even though little by little she started to feel like she had swum for a long time and perhaps even to a wrong direction.

In the silence of the Digital Sea, it was difficult to keep the memories away. Even though months had passed by rushing and moved Lyoko's worst era further and further away into the past, Mary could not forget. She could not forget how she could have lost her life.

Even less she could forget how the enemy could come from behind any corner with the huge sword upright towards her...

Even though the anxiety built up as the minutes passed by, Mary continued her travel. If she would only go straight, she would find her destination and also back to Lyoko.

She had to find the way back. William and Sophie waited for her on Earth and she knew it.

The thought about the old friends, who had helped her begin to feel at home in France back in the day after the move years ago, gave her more courage and vigor to keep swimming.

She would find the way.

Sophie sat on the floor, napping, but William did not take his eyes away from the supercomputer's window even though they ached. Jeremy and Aelita observed the situation next to him, calmer, but both of them were equally worried. They had not heard anything about Mary for a while and they could not do anything as long as she would be in the Digital Sea.

Even though the tingling started to be annoyed by William's trepidation — Mary would be fine, it seemed to say – William did not give it any attention. No matter how much that strange tingling would believe, he would not feel calm until Mary would be back on Earth again.

Finally, Mary found what she had been looking for: the Skidbladnir's wreck. She swam closer and studied it. One of the Navskids was gone and the cockpit was badly damaged, but the other three Navskids were intact aside from dents. She found the people found by the supercomputer from two of them. First, she found the blonde boy. He leant against the glass of his Navskid to see her better and tried to say something. Mary swam closer and pressed her hand against the Navskid's glass, but she could not reach the boy. She could only look at that face, those green eyes, that blonde hair.

Year had elapsed, but Mary could have even sworn that she saw Charlie as a little boy in that boy.

Whoever the boy behind the Navskid's glass was, no matter how much he shouted, his voice was not audible through the glass at all. Mary did not even try to get her own voice audible especially at the risk that some monster would hear her and come there. Skidbladnir did not afford to take a single hit if a battle started.

Not even one...

Mary nodded to the boy and swam to inspect the second Navskid. There she was faced with the blue-haired girl. There were cracks on her Navskid's glass, so Mary was careful when she touched the glass. The girl leant towards the glass and pressed her hand against it on the same spot as Mary did. The dark grey eyes met the blue-grey ones.

There were too many resemblances. This could only be a X.A.N.A.'s trick or truly what she had thought it to be: her childhood friends Eleonor and Charlie.

The mere thought of that made Mary lose her breath in the depts of the Digital Sea. She wanted to call William and Sophie, but she already knew that they did not hear her.

 _Help us_ , the girl asked with her lips. Her voice was not audible through the glass either and she did not even try to get it heard.

Mary nodded. Trap or not, her friends or some other people, she would help.

For now that she looked at those two teens...

...When she looked at them, for the first time in the part of her Lyoko Warriorhood that was set on Earth Mary felt like she had found her way from Lyoko to home.

To home, where her friends were too.  
"Jeremy?" Mary called quietly. "By any chance, could you hear me now?"

No answer. No help. She had to come up with something herself.

Mary tore her eyes from the girl who looked like Eleonora and swam to the cockpit. It was extremely badly dented –- after all, it had taken the worst hits when the Kolossus had hit it and it had been catapulted along the Ice Sector replica's surface to the Digital Sea -– and the glass had shattered. The engines were badly burned.

It would take a miracle to get this wreck anywhere from here, let alone all the way to Lyoko.

Mary shot the rest of the glass broken with careful fireballs and then swam inside the cockpit. It was in a surprisingly good condition from the inside. Turning the joysticks changed nothing. Without power, none of the Skid's systems would work.

Yet she had to come up with something, Mary knew it. She could not leave that duo to the Digital Sea – X.A.N.A. would not let them survive if she left now.

No. Something had to be come up with.

Something.

She could not fail, not now.

Not today.

Never, ever again.

Without electrical powers, Mary could not give power to the Skid. Fire powers did not help.

What could she do?

She looked at the two Navskids. She had to come up with something.  
"I wonder if everything's alright," William pondered aloud. Mary had been at the Skidbladnir for some time without doing much.  
"The Skid is badly damaged. Perhaps she's trying to figure out how she could get the people inside it saved," Aelita theorized. "I wish we could help."  
 _I shouldn't have let her go alone._ William did not say it aloud.

When he looked at the Skidbladnir's picture which Jeremy had taken up to study the submarine's condition, he could not help thinking about the dreams he had seen after his Xanafication. Dreams about when he had been under the AI's possession.

And in some of those dreams he had traveled in the Digital Sea with his own vehicle, the Rorkal...

In the course of the weeks, he had started to theorize that he had been in a conscious state when he had been under X.A.N.A.'s control, but completely powerless to oppose the AI's indisputable control, and after being freed those memories had migrated to the subconscious level for one reason or another, like those memories wiped by Return to the Past of the day he had found the supercomputer by following Odd and Ulrich to the factory. Perhaps he had unwittingly rejected them upon appearing into the scanner after Odd's laser arrow had devirtualized him or perhaps something in the recovery program had moved them aside during those critical seconds when Lyoko's supercomputer had caught him and returned him to where he belonged.

He did not know, and he definitely did not plan to ask anyone about it.

The Digital Sea turned red. The monsters were approaching.

Time was out.

Mary tried the cockpit's controls hastily one more time, but nothing happened.

Without outside help she could not get any power.  
"Jeremy, I wish you could guess what I need..." she sighed and turned to look around herself. Three Sharks approached.

They were not allowed to hit Skid even once. Otherwise she might lose everything.  
"Oh no!" Jeremy cried out when he saw three monsters on the screen.  
"Can't we really do anything?" William asked, using all of his self-control not to shout his question.  
"We can't. Mary is alone, we can't send anyone to her and without power the Skid can't take hits nor shoot torpedoes," Jeremy answered.  
"Can't we give the Skid energy? Couldn't it help?" William asked.  
"I don't think so," Jeremy said. "The Skid's communications link is broken."  
"But the supercomputer finds it, so there must be some kind of a connection," William said. "Jeremy, please, at least try. We have to help Mary!"  
"Fine," Jeremy sighed and opened new windows. If he could transfer power from Sector Five to the Skid, the submarine might even start to function.

Mary shot feeble fireballs at the monsters. The Digital Sea did not let her change her form at all, so she could not use the Light Claw even though she did suppose that it could have advanced further away than the fire-based attacks. Yet she managed to destroy one Shark. Still two more and the Skidbladnir would be safe for a while.

Gathering all the willpower she could muster, Mary threw a bigger fireball towards the two remaining Sharks. One of them dodged, but the other one was destroyed. The Shark that dodged shot a torpedo towards Mary, who dodged and now shot back herself. The Shark was destroyed right before it got to shoot the Skid. The Digital Sea turned blue again.  
"That was close," Mary sighed and returned back to the cockpit. Now, it crackled electricity even though it had not done so a while ago. Could Jeremy have thought about the same thing as she?

There was only one way to find out. Mary returned to the cockpit once more and started to punch the buttons, hoping that she would not get an electric shock. The cockpit light crackled and popped. Now there would be no use of it.  
"Come on, Skid, work now," Mary muttered while trying to direct power to something working. If the shields worked, she could get something else to work.  
"Directing power to the shield," Jeremy said. "If they start to work, the next monster attack should not be so dangerous."  
"Work now," Mary begged while pressing the shields' power button one more time. Suddenly, something started, whirring, and one shield layer appeared around the Skid.  
"Yes!" Jeremy exclaimed upon seeing the power returning to the Skid.  
"Great, Jeremy!" Aelita rejoiced. William sighed in relief.  
"Jeremy, can you hear me now?" Mary asked. No answer was audible. "Cockpit to Navskids, do you copy?" No answer. A new attempt to get the communications link online. "Can anyone hear anything?" Nothing was audible. "Fine, working alone continues."

Now she had to get power to the engines. Mary directed the power's course to them and hoped for the best. Some engine started, clattering and howling. Then another engine started with less noise. "Okay, I might even get this to move. Do the weapons work?" The torpedo system was seemingly the most undamaged. If the power would be sufficient, she would be able to defend the ship.

If the engines worked, this would be enough. The shields and the defense system would be enough; she still knew which way she needed to go.

It would still be nicer if she heard something else than the clatter of the engine and her own breathing...  
 _Let's try one more time._

Mary tried to configure the communications link one more time. Nothing happened; the line was completely voiceless.  
"Fine. Let's go soundlessly then," Mary said aloud. She grabbed the joysticks and turned them carefully. The Skid moved slowly and creaking, but it moved. And it even moved straight and to the right direction.  
"Good. Let's go then," Mary sighed. She turned the sticks forward carefully to get more speed. The control system obeyed the command without additional voices. This would go as long as X.A.N.A. would not try to stop her.

The direction was now towards Lyoko.


	10. The Found

William realized that his palms were sweaty and wiped them to the hem of his shirt. The Skidbladnir moved far too slowly and monsters appeared in far too great numbers and far too often. The power was constantly alarmingly low, and Jeremy had to bend over backwards so that the shields would not fail.

Mary shot torpedoes whenever necessary, trying to keep herself calm. She had to trust that Jeremy would help her the best he could. Her job was to keep Skidbladnir on its course with as low power consumption as possible.

Sophie observed the situation from behind William's back. She could not help eyeing the three persons' digital cards on the screen. Was the world truly so small that the childhood friends would end up together like this?

Or was it fate that brought them together?

Sophie no longer knew, but she trusted that fate would let Jeremy and Mary bring the duo to them and maybe even home.

Finally, Lyoko came into view ahead. Mary pushed the joysticks forward, letting the familiar virtual world's gravity pull the ship closer to the entrance. The monsters shot still but Mary no longer cared about it. She was safe as Lyoko's gravity warped the course of the enemies' torpedoes.

Mantas awaited on Lyoko, but their attacks Mary could already dodge better. In addition to that, now that the torpedo system was useless, she could direct all the power from it to the shields. Another shield layer appeared, so Mary accelerated the pace and hurried to Sector Five. If she got to the Skid's garage and could get the submarine's wreck docked, she might get both herself and the Navskids' prisoners out.  
"Jeremy, do you happen to hear me now?" Mary asked.

William breathed in relief upon hearing his friend's voice. Sophie smiled at him.  
"I told you she'd be fine," Aelita said.  
"I hear you well, Mary," Jeremy reported. "Keep going without stopping. The Mantas can't destroy the Skid if you don't stop and too many more of them won't come."  
"Roger," Mary replied.  
"Jeremy to Navskids, do you copy?" Jeremy asked. No answer was heard. The connection was off.  
"Nothing?" Mary asked.  
"Nothing," Jeremy confirmed.  
"My glass is completely broken. Maybe that's why we can hear each other," Mary noted.  
"Potentially. Have you managed to get any kind of contact to those in the Navskids?" Jeremy asked.  
"We couldn't communicate much. Nothing came through the glass. The other one of them managed to ask for help when I managed to read what she wanted to say from her lips."  
"All right. Then we'll talk when we get you all out of the Skid."

Mary bit her teeth together when there were Mantas waiting on Sector Five's side as well. Clearly X.A.N.A. did not want her to succeed. The lasers rumbled the submarine which creaked from its damage as it was.  
"Keep going, the shields will hold," Jeremy said. Mary nodded, piloted the Skid to the sector's north pole and down into the garage. The Mantas did not follow her there – X.A.N.A. knew he had lost and started to plot new schemes again.  
"And docking!" Jeremy pressed Enter. The supports caught the damaged submarine, after which Einstein transferred the trio inside it onto dry land.

Mary looked at the two teens who were now next to her. They looked at her and each other. No one dared to say anything.

Finally, the blue-haired girl spoke up, "Are you Mary Wind?"  
"I am," Mary answered, her voice steady. "Are you... Eleonora and Charlie?"

The duo nodded. A joyful gleam lighted in both of their eyes when they recognized their friend.  
"Long time, no see," Charlie said. "And here I thought that we'd never see you again after you disappeared."  
"I did think that I wouldn't see any of you again, too," Mary admitted. "But here we are, the whole group together again."  
"Are Sophie and William here too?" Eleonora asked, astounded.  
"More precisely here on Earth, but part of the battle against X.A.N.A. anyway," William answered.  
"Nice to hear your voices again after a long time!" Sophie shouted to the microphone.  
"Great to hear from you too," Charlie said, smiling.  
"How did you end up on Lyoko?" Aelita asked.  
"Who's there?" Charlie asked.  
"Aelita. One of us Lyoko Warriors," Mary answered.  
"We were kidnapped, just like Mary and Sophie," Eleonora told. "William, did you get kidnapped too?"  
"No. I was the only one who avoided that. My parents took me away from the area right after Mary's kidnapping," William told. "Unbelievable that X.A.N.A. took all four of you."  
"But why would it do that? And how did it even succeed?" Jeremy wondered. "At least according to my calculations, you were abducted two years before Franz Hopper built the supercomputer. And even if X.A.N.A. had existed back then already, why did it abduct you, a group of children?"  
"I don't know," Eleonora noted. "We just know that we were kidnapped from home and we woke up in a virtual world."  
"X.A.N.A. transported us from place to another until it got tired of us and shut us into that submarine. And it's been a good while since that," Charlie told.  
"Why did the distress signal come only now?" Mary asked.  
"I don't know. Maybe either of us managed to hit the right keys and get something out," Charlie remarked and shrugged. "I don't even know how long we were trapped in there. Probably for an eternity."  
"It can't have been so many months ago. We lost the Skidbladnir only some months ago," Aelita noted.  
"By the way, what are you going to do now that you've gotten out of the Skid?" Mary asked.

Eleonora and Charlie looked at each other, puzzled. They both shrugged.  
"We couldn't talk to each other when we were inside that ship," Eleonora remarked. "We couldn't plan anything. Do you have any ideas?"  
"Well, if it just works out, you could come and study in the nearby boarding school and fight against X.A.N.A. at the same time like Sophie and I," Mary told.  
"I need to sort things out, but I believe that it'd work out without waking any suspicions," Jeremy noted. "I'll materialize all three of you now so that we can sort things out face-to-face."

_In the morning_

"So, when we were sleeping, Mary visited the Digital Sea and brought not just the Skid's wreck but also two new Lyoko Warriors whom she, William and Sophie know from there. Did I understand correctly?" Yumi asked.  
"That's what happened," Jeremy noted. "I researched how I could get Eleonora and Charlie to Kadic without anyone wondering anything. At least so far it looks promising."  
"We do get new students so often, some even in the middle of the year, that if we just get a good cover story, this shouldn't be a problem," Aelita remarked. "Even during my time, we've received many students who have transferred here in the middle of the year."  
"True," William noted. "I changed the school in the middle of the year too a bit before Aelita started at Kadic."  
"Well, that's good. We mustn't attract any more additional attention to ourselves," Yumi said, solemn.  
"Don't worry, Yumi, we'll plan this carefully before the plan will be put in use," Mary assured.  
"What will we do with the Skid, by the way? X.A.N.A. is still in the network and it probably has lots of supercomputers in its possession again, but we couldn't do much at all to their number last time either," Ulrich asked.  
"There might be something that can be useful in our fight against X.A.N.A. in the network. Or some enemy of X.A.N.A.'s unknown to us in distress," Jeremy answered. "If Eleonora and Charlie ended up into the Digital Sea, we'd better at least monitor its events, perhaps even explore it again as well."  
"But we don't know anyone who would've disappeared in similar circumstances anymore," Sophie remarked. "Why do you assume that someone else might still be out there somewhere?"

Mary looked away surreptitiously. She did know one person who had disappeared completely without a trace as a child just like the four of them had. It had happened in Wales before she had moved to France, but she had still disappeared in similar circumstances.

_Daphne, where are you now?_

"X.A.N.A. might have devices similar to our scanners which it can use to kidnap people into the digital world at its replicas. If it did that to you at an offbeat time, it might try to get people to itself now as well," Jeremy noted. "And monitoring the Digital Sea's events is not away from anything at least at the moment anyway."  
"Whatever," Sophie stated.  
"How bad a condition is the Skid in?" Yumi asked.  
"Quite bad, but it worked enough so that Mary got it all the way here despite of the monsters' attacks," Jeremy noted. "It's repairable. I'm also going to update it when I start working on it."  
"Yay! We get to fish again!" Odd shouted. No one could help laughing at the spiky-haired boy's enthusiasm.

_Two weeks later_

Eleonora and Charlie entered through the Kadic's gate. Jim met them like he had agreed with Jeremy, who had called in Eleonora's mother's name. Mary, Sophie and William watched the situation from afar and hoped for the best.

They had done all they could so that their friends would be prepared for everything this world that was new to them would bring. Now Charlie and Eleonora would be on their own until they would end up into the Lyoko Warriors' group through Sophie and William.

On the next day, Charlie, following his roommate William, and Eleonora, following her classmate Sophie, stepped into the scanners and were virtualized on the Desert Sector.

It was the time for another attack again.

The Lyoko Warriors' group attacked. Even though X.A.N.A. had invested in the monsters' number, the warrior group that had gotten more warriors could defeat it.

When the group was materialized after the attack, Mary looked at her childhood friends. The world truly was small – the people she had not expected to see ever again were with her once again.

But how had all this come about before Lyoko's supercomputer was created? Had the Carthage project in which Franz had been part of before creating Lyoko created X.A.N.A.'s predecessor which would have done the dirty work and left them to its successor?

Mary did not want to ask it from Franz and no one else wanted to bother him with such a distant past either. In the end, the only thing that mattered at this point was that they were together again and did good work to protect the world.

Beside the three new comrades, Mary stepped out of the factory and looked at the cloudless sky. Now that the Skidbladnir had been gotten back and fixed and the childhood friends had been brought back together, everything felt possible.

Somewhere out there loomed a world without danger.

However, the fight still continues...


End file.
